Saturday, 16 January 2016

Korg Volca Beats - A Modding, Circuit bending & Hackers Guide

The Korg Volca Beats is an awesome drum machine which can only be made better with the help
of some mods and a bit of hacking. There are quite a few mods out there already so we (Cobramatic & I)
decided to have a go at ours. I'd particularly like to thank Instructables & Darren Glen.
I've placed links to all theirs ideas at the bottom of this post.

Disclaimer

The actions described in this post will void your warranty and may
damage your equipment. I take no responsibility for your soldering ability or actions.

This blog posting covers the obvious improvements like the snare, adding midi & getting individual outs for each voice.Plus there is a bit of circuit bending. If you have discovered any new mods please let me know.
I'd be happy to put a link to your page in this post.

First remove the battery compartment, then detach the two PCBs from one another.

This is the top PCB board.
Notice the rather tiny SMD components. You will need a magnifier, a good light and as fine a point tip as you can find, as well as very thin solder.

The mods are in the lower right corner.

Of course just opening this box will void your warranty. So only do this if you are confident you can solder onto SMD components.

This is a closeup of the first mod. It's replacing a missing capacitor.
This involves soldering a capacitor across these two points. I chose to solder leads first then attach the cap.
I used a 104 ceramic. ... 0.1 uF (5mm pitch)

Once you have done this it's a good idea to secure the leads with electrical tape or glue stick to the board. I found this out the hard way as after I was done I decided to try my hand at a bit of circuit bending and in doing so inadvertently undid all my work.

And a good bottle of Red will do wonders if you need extra help to steady your nerves.
Today I'm using a Taylors Red. This is a lovely 2001 drop from the Clare Valley of South Australia.